European Union workers stage anti-austerity protests and strikes

Trade unions are staging a series of demonstrations and "general strikes" across the European Union to protest at austerity measures that are blamed for driving up unemployment and pushing down growth.

Millions of workers joined strikes across Europe to protest against spending cuts and tax hikes that trade unions say have brought misery and deepened the region's economic crisisPhoto: Reuters/Getty Images

There is a growing backlash against cuts to public services and "internal devaluation" policies that have targeted wages and Europe's high level of social protection in a bid to restore competitiveness to the EU's highly indebted economies.

The picture is pretty grim. This year unemployment is expected to reach 10.5 per cent in the EU and 11.3 per cent in the euro area – record levels.

EU forecasts predict joblessness rates will climb even further, hitting 10.9 per cent in the EU, over 26 million people out of work, and 11.8 per cent in the euro area in 2013.

In Greece, unemployment is 23.6 per cent, reaching 54 per cent among young people. One thousand Greeks are losing their jobs every day.

Spain, a country that was not in debt before the banking crisis in 2008 and was often cited as an EU growth model, youth unemployment has hit over 55 per cent and the recession is still deepening.

Trade unions blame austerity for hitting demand and acting as a drag on growth at a time of economic recession triggered by the financial crisis.

Police officers try to push protesters back onto the pavement after they blocked traffic on Oxford Street, London (AP)

The combination of slowdown plus austerity has pushed countries, especially Southern European economies at the heart of the eurozone debt storm, into a protracted slump.

A widespread feeling of injustice has been fuelled because governments have ratcheted up borrowing for aid and guarantees worth £3.7 trillion (€4.6trn) to failing European banks while making deep and painful cuts to social provisions.

To compound popular anger, the austerity programmes for eurozone have been drafted and imposed from above by the European Commission in Brussels and the EU's Central Bank in Frankfurt.

Debt programmes have been directly imposed by the EU and International Monetary Fund "troika" in Greece, Portugal and Ireland, countries that have effectively been stripped on their economic sovereignty.

Greece, which has been run by the EU since 2010, has seen over a quarter of its economy wiped out amid high levels of social disintegration, including the rise of an extremist far-Right party linked to the police.

Coordinating the strikes and protests, involving 40 unions in 23 European countries, the European Trade Union Confederation in Brussels has attacked austerity as a "total dead end" which "must be abandoned".

"In some countries, people's exasperation is reaching a peak," said ETUC general secretary Bernadette Segol. "We need urgent solutions to get the economy back on track, not stifle it with austerity. Europe's leaders are wrong not to listen to the anger of the people who are taking to the streets."

Strikers shout outside the Madrid Bus Company during a general strike in Madrid (AFP/Getty)

SPAIN

Spanish workers staged a second general strike of the year, paralysing factories and transport hubs and closing schools as unions called members on to the streets to protest against rising unemployment and austerity measures.

Protestors in cities across Spain set up picket lines overnight at factories, railway and bus stations. In Barcelona strikers burnt tires outside the city's wholesale market and in Madrid picketers blocked entry to the Atocha train station.

The majority of shops on Madrid's Gran Via remained boarded up as hundreds of protestors carrying placards marched along the commercial avenue sounding horns and whistles.

Spain's two main unions, the UGT and CCOO reported early success claiming the majority of workers in the automobile, energy, ports and construction industries were observing the 24-hour walkout.

”This is a strike against the suicidal economic policies of the government,” Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, head of Spain's CCOO union, told supporters at a rally late Tuesday.

The government reported that power demand was 13 per cent below normal levels. By 10 am Spain's Interior Ministry had reported 62 arrests and 34 injuries.

PORTUGAL

In Portugal, the CGTP labour group called a strike to protest measures that include wage and pension cuts. Marches are planned in some 40 towns and cities against the centre-right government's austerity policies.

Flights were cancelled, Lisbon's metro service was shut and state-owned train operator said most trains won't run.

Rubbish collection in the capital ground to a near halt and hospitals were running with a skeleton staff after a reported 90 per cent of health works observed the strike call.

GREECE

Greece is expected to be hit by walkouts but its trade unions have been hit hard by the national crisis.

Protest will limited to a three-hour work stoppage across Greece from 1pm and a rally in Athens, which is expected to lead to clashes between police and protesters on Syntagma Sqaure, in front of the Greek parliament.

ITALY

Strikes and demonstrations brought much of Italy to a halt on Wednesday, as students, unions and the unemployed demonstrated in solidarity with other European countries against grinding austerity measures and rising joblessness.

Tens of thousands of protesters were taking part in marches and rallies in Rome, Milan, Turin, Bologna, Florence, Palermo and dozens of other Italian cities.

In Turin, demonstrators threw eggs at the office of a tax collection agency.

In Rome, three police officers were injured by stone-throwing protesters who tried to force their way through riot police cordons to reach Palazzo Chigi, the official residence of the prime minister.

A general strike is underway, with hospital employees, teachers and transport workers staying away from work.

In Terni in Umbria a large protest was being led by Susanna Camusso, the head of Italy's powerful CGIL labour union.

With unemployment over 10 per cent, anger is growing over the austerity measures and budget cuts introduced by the technocrat government of Mario Monti, the prime minister, who replaced Silvio Berlusconi almost exactly a year ago.

FRANCE

France’s five main unions were staging 130 marches around the country “for employment, solidarity in Europe and against austerity”, with the leaders of the two main unions, CGT and CFDT joining forces for the first time since Socialist President François Hollande took power in a Paris march on Wednesday afternoon.

François Chérèque, head of the moderate CFDT union, said the protests were “directed against European heads of state to tell them: ‘You cannot impose this type of austerity, it’s too dangerous for the economy, and above all too dangerous in social terms and can create tragedies.”

The more militant leftist CGT said: “Let’s move from resistance to offensive action”.

"We are all Greek, Portugese, Italian and Spanish. We are all European and we must fight for another Europe," said the Solidaires union.

On Tuesday, Mr Hollande insisted that anti-austerity demonstrations sweeping Europe did not “put into question” his policies but,on the contrary “supported” them. He said he had re-oriented Europe towards fiscal discipline coupled with growth measures.

But Mr Chérèque said the French president “only spoke about the need to cut deficits” without mentioning the “dangers” of austerity policies.

Unions oppose his decision to give businesses 20 billion euros in tax breaks financed by a combination of cuts in public spending and a hike in sales taxes.

The French government denies imposing austerity, despite plans to reduce public spending by 12 billion euros a year over its five-year mandate, for a total reduction of 60 billion euros by 2017.

GERMANY

Germany has been criticised by many Southern Europe for being the driving force, as the EU's largest economy and principle paymaster, behind austerity.

On a recent trip to Athens, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, was greeted with protesters comparing her "Reich" to Adolf Hitler's and the troika to Nazi occupiers in the Second World War.

But the German union federation DGB has called protests across the country, including Frankfurt, which hosts the European Central Bank, leading to the cancellation of high-speed Thalys rail services between Belgium and Germany.

"For now it is mostly people in southern Europe suffering from a crisis they are not responsible for. But the consequences will surely be felt in the rest of Europe," said a union statement.

Belgian workers demonstrate on rail tracks and block trains during a European strike, at the North train station in Brussels (Reuters)

BELGIUM

The Eurocrats who draw up austerity programmes in Brussels will suffer little more than increased traffic jams on their way into work in the city's EU quarter.

Trains and public transport have been closed down by the protest, hitting ordinary Belgians but presenting minimal disruption for the gleaming Audis and BMW cars of EU officials. Eurostar services have been severely disrupted by the Belgian rail workers' protests.

EU staff unions will not be making protests but are locked into industrial action next week in opposition to the idea that austerity measures should be applied to them too.

EU spending has continued to rise throughout the crisis and David Cameron will demand cuts to Brussels budgets summit next week when Europe's leaders debate a demand for an 11 per cent increase in expenditure from the commission.